MicroServer Gen8 is noisy

[paulgear]

And just a further note in case somebody mentions this thread to anyone with clout in HP: the reason fakeRAID is unsupportable is because it requires custom proprietary drivers. If this is to be a useful branch office server, all the drivers need to be supported by ESXi and recent Linux kernels right out of the box. That means getting it into the mainline kernel tree, and that means you need to GPL your driver. You can't be serious about Linux support without doing this. (And when you do this, hopefully the kernel developers will remind you that Linux already has multiple functional software RAID subsystems and that you'd be better just supporting them fully.)

[Oscar A. Perez]

After I read this thread over the weekend, I decided to test the Microserver Gen8 (codename LEO) in my lab. I've been debugging the iLO4 health subsytstem while the server runs in SATA AHCI mode and I know exactly what is going on here and I also know what can be done to solve this fan noise issue.

I've talked with people in the iLO team but, we are going to need input from the thermal guys before we can move forward.

I also talked to Jimmy Vance earlier this week and he told me he's still in contact with the LEO team and actively looking for a solution from his side as well.  

[PAC_]

This is great news!

Please keep us posted and let us know if there is anything we could do to help.

[ZakSmith]

I forgot one more thing

(7) Make the darn thing boot faster.    I don't mean the OS part.  Linux boots off an SSD in just a few seconds.  I mean getting through all the BIOS and into the boot loader.  It takes forever on the Proliants to boot.   I know it's a server and I leave all my machines on and have long uptimes.  However, if we need to reboot something "real quick" for whatever reason, it's a pain to have it down for what seems like 5 minutes.  It's probably shorter than that but it takes too long.

[paulgear]

Thanks Oscar. That is indeed great news.

I was under the impression after PAC_'s post (http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-Netservers/MicroServer-Gen8-is-noisy/m-p/6295783#M20163) that we were at the end of the road. It's good to hear that that is not the case.

[clampy82]

Hi all,

first time poster, long time reader.

I would also like to chime in on the AHCI mode on the controller. I would really like to use it without the iLO having a panic about hdd temps and ramping the fan speed up.

There is a lot more i would like to say in this post but its more or less been covered.

Pretty please give us a better/usable AHCI mode!

[jazz1138]

For people after an un-official fix. A bootleg iLO firmware has appeared on the homeservershow.com forums in the post titled "G8 Microserver - Be aware of Fan issue, add in cards".

I've tested and it works for me.

[karma4u101]

I have a older hp MicroServer running Ubuntu 13.10, used as booth media server and web server and it is dead silent !

I recently decided to invest in newer (and a bit faster) hardware and as a was really happy with the older microserver I decides to go for the newer gen8 and at the same time I bought 2 st HP 1TB 6G SATA 7.2K rpm LFF (3.5-inch) N disks.

I immediately noticed how awfully noisy this maskin was (unacceptable noisy) compared to the dead silent older one.

It seemd like I got b120i running under ubuntu configured with raid0 but the maskin was still noisy and I have during the past week been trying to fix the problem with different setting but non of the setting has made me happy :( as I compare it with my other microserver or compared to the (silent) noice level i experienced as described below. 

Using the Ubuntu 13.10 server dist the only time the server fans spins down (after a minute or so) and the sound is comparable with my older microserver is when I boot into F5 for hp smart array b120i configuration.

My questions is

1) Will/is HP support(ing) ubuntu server for this maskin using a b120i raid configuration, if so using it will I then get ridd of the fan noice?

2) Will HP fix the issue with the fan noice in genneral so that the maskin will be silent as expected runing ubuntu server software. if so in what form will the fix come will it be a firmware update or some linux driver updates?

3) Have I made a major blunder trusting hp to deliver awesome hardware and having contious commitment to support major open  source software like Ubuntu ?

To me it seems a bit strange that the internal b120i controller (and propritary software) has to be used for the fans to operate correctly but if hp decides this is the only way to get this maskin to run silently please provide information on how to make it work as expected on ubuntu.

best regards Peter

[Oscar A. Perez]

Update: I've been testing a new J06 ROM (still Beta) that reduces the Microserver Gen8 Fan speed from 36% down to 28% when room temperature is 25ºC. This is of course, when SATA AHCI mode is used where iLO4 is unable to obtain Hard Drives temperatures to better control the system fan. 

This ROM will be released next month and I will provide the FTP link as soon as it gets signed off.

[Torsten.]

Similar problem ...

We have here 2 ML310e Gen8, one with disks connected to the B120i dynamic smart array controller (not noisy) and one with a P420 smart array for the internal disks (noisy). This server has the internal controller set to SATA AHCI, but no disks connected.

Will disabling the controller solve the problem too?
We cannot test at the moment.